J.E.DYER EXPLAINS CRUZ TALK ABOUT ‘CARPET BOMBING ISIS’……

J.E.Dyer is the go to person for analysis on anything dealing with the military and geopolitical issues (just for starters), she’s sharp as a tack.

The simplest way to approach this criticism is by pointing out that ISIS isn’t a mere terrorist group, in the way Raddatz means. It’s a guerrilla insurgency that has the goal of achieving a lasting, territory-based political objective.

I’ve been emphasizing this since my very first post on ISIS in January 2014. And even aside from all other considerations, it’s why Cruz is right in his assessment that ISIS has to be attacked in some of the same ways we would attack a nation-state with a national army. It’s because ISIS acts like one.

This is Cruz’s unspoken premise, and it’s spot-on. Moreover, it’s actually good news that ISIS is a territorial phenomenon. A guerrilla force that occupies territory, and tries to politically administer and defend it, is easier to organize against than one (like Al Qaeda) that doesn’t. Attacking a force that has weapons depots and command headquarters and training camps (“troop formations”), and makes money off selling oil, and tries to control the local civil infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams) – that’s what we’re already trained and equipped to do.

What Ted Cruz means when he talks about ‘carpet bombing ISIS’

By J.E. DyerApril 3, 2016

Ted Cruz 97% has come in for a lot of pile-on criticism for his repeated references to “carpet bombing” ISIS. But although the terminology itself is incorrect – based on his own definition of what he’s talking about – he’s got everything else pretty much right.

It’s the ear of partisan politics that refuses to hear what he’s saying. And it’s the brain of ignorance that doesn’t recognize the validity of his key – but unspoken – premise.

Herewith, an explanation.

Boilerplate about political leadership aside, this is the key passage:

Now, when I say saturation/carpet bombing, that’s not indiscriminate.

That is targeted at oil facilities; it’s targeted at the oil tankers; it’s targeted at command and control locations; it’s targeted at infrastructure; it’s targeted at communications.

It’s targeted at bombing all of the roads and bridges going in and out of Raqqa. It’s using overwhelming air power…

You know, a couple of weeks ago, it was reported that a facility is open called “jihadist university.” Now, the question I wonder – why is that building still standing? It should be rubble.

That’s what Cruz is referring to.

Military experts queried by the media have of course pointed out that “carpet bombing” is not a military term. And it’s not; it’s a popular expression the military itself doesn’t use, precisely because “carpet bombing” connotes the long-abandoned practice of blanketing a target area with bombs in order to do maximum damage across the area. Once it became possible to make bombs more accurate and increase their lethality within a smaller radius, military planners saw less and less need to rely on generalized destruction to accomplish the goals set for them.

But that doesn’t mean there’s never a need for what Cruz describes. What he describes is a perfectly legitimate military method. But it’s not identified by the way you bomb, which relates to weapons and tactics; it’s identified as a type of campaign.

Not “bombing method” but “campaign type” or phase

It’s called an interdiction campaign. (If you like, it’s an air interdiction campaign, although that is, for most purposes, understood.) It refers to attacking key military targets from the air (mostly): typically targets with strategic significance, and the infrastructure the military and the enemy’s political leadership rely on.

And Cruz is right, in principle, to keep referring back to Gulf I/Desert Storm, because that war started with a lengthy, intensive interdiction campaign. It’s the quintessential example of the interdiction campaign from the modern warfare era.

In fact, the interdiction campaign of the first Gulf War was a phase of its own in the overall design of the operation – much longer, at five weeks, than the “100-hour” ground war in February 1991.

Now, does that mean that we should attack ISIS using the very same campaign design? No. But it illustrates that what Cruz is talking about is a legitimate military method and has a name.

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"Every devout Muslim is an "Islamist". Islam is not a personal religion. It is a religion of the public space. A "moderate" Muslim would have to reject Islam as a religion of the public space, as theocracy, and that secularism would be a rejection of Islam.

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